RadioShack continues death march, loses $98.3 million in a quarter

On Tuesday, electronics retailer RadioShack reported its quarterly earnings, and the results were not good. The company lost $98.3 million in its first fiscal quarter of 2014, a figure that's more than triple the loss it sustained in the same quarter last year.

Ars put RadioShack on our 2014 “Deathwatch” earlier in January, and not without reason. The retailer has relied on mobile phone sales to buoy it through the hard times and has tried to rebrand itself as the place to shop for Do-It-Yourselfers, stocking its shelves with various Arduino projects. But customers can find the handsets they need in carriers' shops, and they often choose to buy DIY electronics goods online or in hardware stores.

In a press release, the company attributed the quarter results to "an industry-wide decline in consumer electronics and a soft mobility market which impacted traffic trends throughout the quarter."

"In particular, our mobility business was weak due to lackluster consumer interest in the current handset assortment and increased promotional activities across the industry including the wireless carriers. This resulted in disappointing sales and gross margin performance." RadioShack CEO Joseph C. Magnacca said.

Magnacca is a former Walgreens executive who joined RadioShack in February 2013. Since then, he has tried to upgrade some RadioShack stores to make them more modern. The company also announced in March that it would move to close 1,100—or about 20 percent—of its stores. But The Wall Street Journal reports that closing those stores may be more difficult for RadioShack than it may have expected; without the approval of some of the company's lenders, RadioShack won't be able to close more than 200 stores this year.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that RadioShack secured a $35 million credit line on Monday of this week, adding to its growing debts. And over the past year, the company's stock price has fallen 45 percent. We wish them the best, but RadioShack seems to be going down a dark path.